She's Really my Baby Sister
by bamboo72498
Summary: This came from something Penny Johnson Jerald said at the Castle Paley Fest panel in 2012. The life of Lanie and Victoria as sisters and all the drama that relationship can bring.


**A/N: So this has been in my head since last year, but I never could figure out a right way to write it until now. Each chapter will be rom a different time in their lives as sister, this one is from when they were kids, and will probably continue until where they are now and possibly past that. parts will be AU, bit I try and keep it as cannon as possible.**

**Enjoy!**

**Disclamor: I don't own them! But thank you Marlowe for inventing them and to Tamala Jones and Penny Johnson Jerald for bringing them to life before our eyes.**

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The hospital was too quiet and it smelt funny like turpentine and lemon furniture polish. She's holding hands with her uncle Mike who hasn't told her why they were at the hospital.

All he said was that none of her parents were hurt, because that was her first thought, and that there was a present waiting for her when she got there.

They finally stop walking and stood in front of a big, heavy wood door. Uncle Mike knocks and sticks his head a little inside the room; Victoria can hear him asking the people inside for permission to come in.

The people behind the door grant them entrance and Mike pushes the door open.

The first person she sees inside the room is her dad.

She calls out his name and runs into his outstretched arms. He picks her up and swings her in a circle, making cure her feet don't hit anything breakable.

"Did you have a good day at school?" he asks in that deep baritone voice he has that flows through Victoria like hot chocolate on a snow day.

"Uh-huh," she replies, still in her father's arms, looking out the window at the busy city streets below.

"Hi baby girl," she didn't notice her mom sitting in the bed behind them until she spoke.

"Hi Mama," Victoria says sliding down from her father to the floor. She walks the five steps to the head of the bed and kisses her mom's turned cheek.

Her mom smiles, that smiles she give Victoria when the girl knows she's done something good.

"Do you want to meet you new sister?" Mama asks, looking down at the first grader.

"You had the baby?" Victoria asks excitedly. Her new sibling is all the girl could talk about since she found out her mom was pregnant. She had been praying every Sunday at church for the past three months for the baby to be a girl and not a boy because as she put it: "Boys are icky."

Her dad lifts her up onto the bed and she cuddles close to her mom's side.

"Gentle 'Toria," her mom reminds her softly.

Victoria looks down at the pile of blankets her mom is holding. There's something moving inside!

She leans in closer to see her sister's face. It's tiny and pink and looks a lot like her mama: same eyes and nose, just littler.

"What's her name?" she asks.

"Lanie," Daddy says, from the chair he's occupying in the corner.

"Do you want to hold her?" Mama asks. She nods and smiles. Such a big kid thing to do: holding your baby sister. "Ok, sit back next to me, alright?" Mama instructs.

She moves back and leans against the headboard. Mama lays a pillow over her crossed legs then lays baby Lanie on top of that.

The baby is wrapped tight in the blankets, but still manages to squirm on Victoria's lap. Mama has one hand on the baby, the other on her oldest daughter; as if to reassure her that the baby won't break if she touches her.

Victoria runs a finger over her sister's face and giggles when she scrunches her nose when Victoria touches her.

"She's really little," Victoria breathes.

"She's just a baby. She's going to be little for a while. But soon she will be as big as you are," Mama says into Victoria's ear, her breath tickling the hairs on the back of her neck. "This means you're going to have to be the big sister. You have to look out for Lanie, make sure nothing hurts her. Can you do that?"

Victoria nods and says, barely a whisper: "I'll be the best big sister."

A minute later she gets a quizzical look on her face. "But Uncle Mike," she starts, looking at her uncle. "Where is my present?"

[] []

"Lanie stop!" Victoria shouts at her two year old sister.

They were supposed to be helping their father rake up the fallen leaves in the yard, but Lanie was playing more than helping.

Victoria knew her sister shouldn't be allowed to help with anything: she would just mess everything up.

"Daddy! She's ruining the whole thing!" Victoria calls to her dad who has moved across the yard to work on another corner and let the girls work on the corner he help them start.

Daddy looks up and wipes the sweat off his forehead. He drops his rake on the ground and walks over to the girls, wiping his hands on his jeans.

"Victoria, be nice to your sister, she's only a little one," Daddy says, using her full first name; everyone else in her family and her friends call her either 'Tori' or 'Toria.'

"But Daddy, she's not even helping, she's just playing," she says, a whine coming into her voice.

This was supposed to be _her_ project with Daddy, and then her sister came out into the yard and asked to help, to which her father quickly agreed. It wasn't fair! She ruins everything!

"Then you need to teach her how to rake leaves. It's her first autumn where she's not a baby anymore; she's never done this before. As her big sister it's your job to teach her things like this, alright?"

Victoria nods and moves out from under her dad's large hand as he ruffles her hair. She fixes her ponytail and goes back over to her sister.

She spends the next hour calmly and slowly teaching Lanie how to rake the leaves into a pile so that they can be put into a trash bag.

It seems to work for a while: Lanie was actually trying to help. But after about fifteen minutes, Lanie grew bored and started getting more and more distracted, despite Victoria's best efforts to keep her on track. Lanie thought it was the funniest thing to start kicking the leaves in the piles her sister had worked so hard to make and would start to laugh when her sister complained about it.

Finally after the fifth go at this game, Victoria grew tired of it.

She threw down her rake, almost as if she were really angry, and made a face that looked to her sister like she was upset that she had messed up all her hard work.

When Lanie walked over to make her sister feel better, Victoria pounced: jumping and making her sister scream and laugh. Victoria picked up her sister and swung her around, just like their dad did. Then she dropped her sister into the now ruined pile of leaves. Victoria followed, tossing leaves and sticks onto her sister, and Lanie did the same.

Their Daddy walked over to see what all the fuss was about. He found both of his girls in a pile of leaves, breathless with giggles, covered in leaves and dirt.

He added to their giggles by throwing more leaves on top of them.

Finally Victoria stopped laughing long enough to stand up and pull her sister out of the pile. She raked the pile back together and showed her sister how to take a running start and jump into the leaves.

Lanie thought this was the most fun game ever invented; though at two she wasn't quite big enough to get a good running start and jump, so Daddy had help her with that part.

They spent the rest of the morning and into the afternoon jumping into the leaf pile, which Daddy made bigger by adding leaves from the other piles they had made. The yard was filled with shrieks and giggles from the two little girls. Their chores were long forgotten.

[] []

When she turned thirteen, Mama told her she needed to take on more responsibility around the house.

When the school year started that 'responsibility' included picking up her little sister from school, making sure she did her homework and taking her to dance class. Of course on top of all of that she had her own school work, chores and her cross country practices and meets.

It was a lot to handle for an eighth grader, but Victoria was determined to make it work and not let her mama down.

One day in mid-October, Victoria stood outside of the doors leading to the first grade classrooms with all of the other mothers and siblings and caretakers. It makes her fell less awkward standing with a group of people instead of by herself.

The bell rings, and the doors burst open to let the flood of little kids through. They run to their families, accepting hugs and handing over backpacks and other things from school.

Victoria keeps her eyes peeled for one little girl in particular. She hears her sister before she sees her.

"'Toria, 'Toria! The book fair is coming!" Lanie runs into her waist waving around a paper flyer advertising the school book fair that is coming at the end of the month.

"So I'm guessing you're excited?" Victoria asks, leading Lanie out of the still crowded playground and down the sidewalk back to the middle school.

"Yea!" Lanie is shaking with excitement. "Do you think Mama will let me get a new book?" she turns and walks backward on her toes, using her dance training to know where to go and not trip over her feet.

"I don't know baby, but we'll ask her when she gets home, alright?"

Lanie nods and turns back around. Luckily Victoria's school is just down the street from her little sister's, so they make it back to the field behind the junior high with time to spare.

Members of the cross country team are there already and milling about talking and taking a minute to catch their breath after school.

The two sisters drop their bags onto the dead, dry grass and Lanie sits next to hers, opening her lunch box to get her snack.

"Lanie, stay here; I'm going to change real quick," Victoria tells her sister who nods through a bite of her peanut butter crackers.

Victoria returns and watches as her sister charms the other kids and coaches on the team. She quickly stretches out, makes sure the laces on her shoes are tight and jumps in line with the others.

Coach Johnson blows his whistle and the group takes off on the two and a half mile long course the coaches had set up the previous week.

Victoria falls into a rhythm quickly and tunes out the sounds around her, going into her own world where nothing exists besides her and the path she's on. She hits the mile mark with ease and takes a break to walk for a while. She notices that a lot of the kids around her have been walking more than running. She simply shakes her head at the out of shapes team members and jumps back into her rhythm.

By two miles, she's starting to feel it and has to stop and walk. She's been working up to running over two miles, but it's a slow process.

She gets back to the field and makes a beeline for her backpack and her water bottle.

"'Toria, can you quiz me on my spelling words?" Lanie asks. She stands and holds out the strip of paper with words written on it.

She's such a good kid: doesn't complain about having to come to her older sister's school nearly every weekday afternoon or about not getting to play with her friends after she finished her homework. Lanie just takes it in her stride, tries to find the positive in everything she does.

Victoria nods, takes another swig of her water before taking the list out of her sister's tiny hands.

"Okay, ready?"


End file.
